Fund, major constraint to finishing NDE national office complex —Minister, contractor

The construction company in charge of the national office complex of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has said that none availability of required funds will delay the completion of the agency’s long awaited headquarters building.

Mr Emma Azoro, the head engineer for Scadon Construction Company who is in charge of the NDE headquarters building told newsmen last week in Abuja that the his construction firm, has put in place mechanical, technological and manpower needed to finish the all important operational headquarters of the job creation agency.

“Scadon Nigeria Limited is the company constructing the National Directorate of Employment headquarters building. The building is a seven- floor building with a ground floor, a basement and a paint floor.  Generally, we have about 140 offices in the building. We have a clinic, storages and training halls. We also have partitionable spaces. Although the offices have been designed the way they are in the drawing by the architect, they can also be redesigned.

“We actually commenced the building in the month of November 2021 and we hope to complete it in the next six months or less than that provided the required funds are made available without delay. And we on our own part will not delay in deploying the right machinery, manpower and workforce to get it done.

“Funds are the important factor in determining the finishing the building on time. It is left for government to determine whether the project is important to them and then make provision for funds to enable us finish the building quickly.”

Recall that the NDE national headquarters has been carrying its operations in a rented building where it pays millions yearly.

Earlier, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo, who was conducted round the building on his working inspection to ascertain the level of progress on the construction of the building, praised President Muhammandu Buhari for his love and interest towards ensuring that NDE own a benefitting office complex to enable it carry out its statutory duties productively.

“A functional building for NDE was one of the first things I pursued as Minister because we need a permanent site. Where we are now in Zone 1, Nouakchott Street has actually been a rented apartment for so many years and we pay so much every year as rent there.

“We actually pursued this and graciously Mr President granted us the permission to take over this building and handed it over to us as our permanent site. I am sure you see how very impressive the building is even in an unfinished state. It shows the love the President has for this agency and the support the President has given to this agency.

“The second one is to also behave like Olivia Twist; we are appealing for funds, bulk funds to finish it as quickly as possible. You will notice that every year, building materials go up so much. So if we don’t finish as quickly as possible, a building that you can use N10 to finish, if you delay for five years, you will use another N100 to finish that building. It will be three to four times the price for finishing. So the thing is to get funds out and finish it as quickly as possible. One, it helps us to conserve funds ultimately even though we can get or if we are getting more funds immediately, but ultimately, we preserve fund and save the funds for the Federal Government.

“The third one is, NDE is the main employment agency. It should be realise that this building is for the star employment agency for Nigeria. We have other ones, we have other agencies in other ministries that create some pocket of jobs but NDE is the star agency by law, it is the star agency to create jobs in the country.”